Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R.-Ga.) speaks out on the Voting Rights Act

Rep. Westmoreland delivered the following speech on the floor of the House on Thursday:

The Voting Rights Act has a proud and important legacy in my home state of Georgia and across the United States. With minor changes that would modernize the Voting Rights Act and better reflect the reality of what’s happening in the 21st century, I would be joining many of my colleagues and voting "yes" today.

But the bill we have before us is fatally flawed, Mr. Chairman. This rewrite is outdated, unfair and unconstitutional. I cannot support it in its current form.

This renewal treats Georgia as if nothing’s changed in the past 41 years. In other words, this rewrite seems based on the assumption that the Voting Rights Act hasn’t worked.

As a Georgian who’s proud of our tremendous progress and proud of our current record of equality, I’m here to report to my colleagues in the House that the Voting Rights Act HAS worked in my state and now it’s time to modernize the law to deal with the problems of today, not yesteryear.

Mr. Chairman, it’s true that when the Voting Rights Act was first passed in 1965, Georgia needed federal intervention to correct decades of discrimination.

Now, 41 years later, Georgia’s record on voter equality can stand up against any other state in the union. Today, black Georgians are registered to vote at higher percentages than white Georgians and black Georgians go to the polls in higher percentages than white Georgians. One-third of our statewide elected officials are African-Americans, including our attorney general and the chief justice of the state Supreme Court. Plus, African-Americans’ representation in the state Legislature closely mirrors their representation in Georgia’s population.

But don’t just take my word for it on Georgia’s progress. Listen to this ringing endorsement from my colleague from Georgia, Congressman John Lewis, an icon of the civil rights movement.

Under oath in federal court five years ago, Congressman Lewis testified: "There has been a transformation. It’s a different state, it’s a different political climate, it’s a different political environment. It’s altogether a different world we live in. … We’ve come a great distance. It’s not just in Georgia, but in the American South I think people are preparing to lay down the burden of race."

If he said that under oath – sworn to tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth – why is he telling the House something completely different today?

Though it defies common sense, this renewal of the Voting Rights Act gives NO CONSIDERATION to any changes that may have occurred since the first law was passed in 1965. Lester Maddox, George Wallace and Bull Connor have at least two things in common: 1) they are all segregationists and 2) they are all dead.

The House is voting today to keep my state in the penalty box for 25 more years based on the actions of people who are now dead. By the end of this renewal, Georgia will have been treated by federal law as a "bad actor" for 66 years, Mr. Chairman. To put that in perspective, 66 years ago, FDR was in his second term, and the Japanese were more than a year away from bombing Pearl Harbor.

By passing this rewrite of the Voting Rights Act, Congress is declaring from on high that states with voting problems 40 years ago can simply never be forgiven – that Georgians must eternally wear the scarlet letter because of the actions of their grandparents and great-grandparents. We have repented and we have reformed, and now, as Fannie Lou Hamer famously said, "I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired."

Lastly, this renewal is unconstitutional. In 1966, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act – the section that singles out certain states for federal oversight – was constitutional only because it was narrowly tailored to fix a specific problem and temporary. You don’t need a law school degree to know that this renewal of the Voting Rights Act fails both of those tests. At 41 years, we’re already way past "temporary" and the application of Section 5 is now arbitrary because this House CANNOT present evidence of extraordinary, continuing, state-sponsored discrimination in the covered states that is different from the rest of the nation.

As such, Section 5 has served its purpose and is no longer an appropriate remedy in light of today’s newer voting problems.

The Voting Rights Act represents a grand trophy of great accomplish for Congress. But after 41 years, the trophy needs dusting.

We could have given the trophy a new shine for a new century. Sadly, that didn’t happen.

Instead, this bill states EXPLICITLY that my constituents can’t be trusted to act in good faith without federal supervision. That assertion is as ignorant as it is insulting.

I cannot and will not support a bill that is outdated, unfair and unconstitutional.